One of my first posts when I moved over here to blogspot was on bread. I love bread. My whole family loves bread. I feel sorry for people who are allergic to wheat. *sigh* Of course, I admit that making an entire meal out of bread is not a healthy idea. Don't get me wrong, I love a balanced meal, and I don't believe in overindulging in one food group too much. But still... sometimes eating half a loaf of fresh bread by yourself is a little too appealing. Haha...
Well, about 6 or 7 months ago, I really got a hankering for some good San Francisco style sourdough french bread. See, when we lived in California, we had access to some of the best sourdough ever. Sometimes Dad would go to the Parisian factory (RIP *sigh*) and bring home a fresh, warm loaf (invariably with a hunk missing out of it). That stuff was good. Tangy, chewy, and with an irresistible crunchy crust. Slice some up, toast it, put a little butter and some of Mom's homemade peach/pineapple jam on there and you're pretty much in taste-bud heaven!
So now, living in Africa - far, far away from the land of sourdough... I decided to embark upon a journey to bring back sourdough to our house! *cue triumphant music*
It actually didn't start too well.
After a couple different well-intentioned but ill-fated tries, I finally got a decent starter to grow. Huzzah! Now to bake. My first attempt resulted in what was affectionately named "lead bread" by my dear brothers. I should have taken a picture of it. Flat and heavy doesn't really begin to describe it. But it had a great flavor... and they actually ate most of it, bad as it was. Disappointed, but not overcome, I pressed on!
I researched sourdough all over the internet... I read about the science of it, the history of it, the technique, the recipes... After several mostly-failed attempts, I finally got a recipe to rise nicely! It was a good recipe - which I got from a friend - but it was just sourdough bread, not sourdough french bread. Nice, but not what I was looking for.
Fast forward past a few months, a starter-turned-acetone incident, a new starter, a lot of learning, and several pounds of flour later, and voila! I finally got it. I now have a lovely, strong starter (and another, new one, growing as we speak), and several beautiful, sour, chewy, airy-but-still-dense-enough loaves under my belt (figuratively of course... *nervous chuckle*)
I took a bunch of pictures the last time I made some, so you can see what goes on in the wonderful world of sourdough! My next post will be a review of the process. :)
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